One of the big stories in the news this week—after the NFL referees, the breast-cancer “breakthrough” and the Netanyahu “red line” bomb—was news of possible life on the Red Planet.

Our space rover, Curiosity, has been probing Mars since 8-9-12 and has just come up with pictures of a rock formation that scientists claim could only have been created by fast-flowing water. This new information, of course, raises many more questions:

1. What kind of life was there? Plants, animals, insects?
2. Was there ever intelligent life on Mars?
3. When did life begin on Mars and when did it end?
4. Why did life end on Mars?

Published by BenBella — October 2011

That’s the big question in my mind, “Why did life end on Mars?” If we knew what caused life to end on Mars, what valuable lessons might we learn from that information?

What steps can we take to give our planet the best possible chance of sustaining life indefinitely? I touched on these thoughts in the Introduction to our book:

The primary objective of this book is to outline in simple, everyday terms the extent of the problems we face, how we got ourselves into trouble, and what each of us can do to make things better. Fortunately, despite the incredible complexity of our current dilemma, the solution is refreshingly simple.

All we have to do is educate ourselves, start making better choices about what we eat, and then share all that we have learned with everyone we care about. I am convinced that there has never been anything more important in the history of the world.

The history of the world? No. I have since revised my thinking on that statement. We know that our planet was formed roughly 4 billion years ago (as was Mars) and that the world was already 3. 8 billion years old before humans arrived. We’ve been here only about 5% of the time that our planet has been in existence.

The Planet Mars

During the previous 95%, the 3.8 billion years before our arrival, our planet experienced a number of mass extinctions—and survived every one of them. We can only wonder about Mars in terms of the history of life on that planet. But we can be sure of one thing—the planet itself survived—but not the “life” that once existed there.

My point here is that it is almost certain that our planet will survive for billions of more years. The big question is: How long will “life” continue on this planet and how long will humans be a part of that life?

And to what extent do our actions today affect the Earth’s ability to sustain human life indefinitely? Hence my revised statement is that this is the most important topic in the history of the human race—not the history of the world. 

What damage have we inflicted? We learned in the movie HOME, that in just the past fifty years, the human race has inflicted more damage on the fragile harmony of our planet than all previous generations of humans for the last 200,000 years. A big part of the problem is our numbers. It took our human population almost 200,000 years to reach one billion; since then, we’ve added another six billion in just a few hundred years. And we continue to add to our population at the rate of a new billion people every fifteen years.

What can we learn from our smaller sister planet that might bode well for the sustainability of the human race?

And while we were busy multiplying, we were also straying away from the natural plant-based diet for our species to a modern western diet that requires ten times more water, ten times more land and ten times more energy for the same amount of calories.

Not only that, we humans are also the big culprits behind species extinction and global warming. And let’s not forget the 2 billion sentient beings that we “civilized” humans torture and kill every single week for our dinner tables.

The Bottom Line. We’ve got some serious problems on our own planet. Perhaps we can learn some lessons from previous life forms on other planets—lessons that will bring us to our senses before it’s too late.

• Source document. Is this proof of life on Mars? | The Sun |News
• The Movie HOME and the movie EARTHLINGS.
• Forget “saving the planet.” Think great grandchildren.
• Drought, famine and the sustainability of the human race
• “Dust Bowl” debate. Experts are missing the main point.

Take-charge-of-your-health (and your planet) kit—from Amazon.com

Consecutive daily blogs (numerals today from “super swing state” Ohio)

• The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD 
• Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
• An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
• Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

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Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation